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Tom Tancredo: Unconventional candidate makes second try for governor

By Lynn BartelsThe Denver Post

Posted:
06/13/2014 12:01:00 AM MDT

Republican candidate for governor Tom Tancredo talks with his supporters at Gunsmoke gun shop in Wheat Ridge on June 5. Tancredo also ran for governor in 2010, as a third-party candidate. (Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post)

The weekend before ballots were mailed to voters, Tom Tancredo attended his 8-year-old grandson Michael's baseball game and then the boy's piano recital — the timing of which made it impossible to watch grandson William's baseball games.

Oh, sure, there was Douglas County's Lincoln Day Dinner that Saturday night, and going door-to-door to meet voters the next day in west Denver. But conventional wisdom says a candidate's calendar should be packed with political events the weekend before ballots go out in the mail.

Then again, Tom Tancredo is anything but conventional.

Best known as anti-illegal immigration firebrand, Tancredo successfully pushed term limits on state office holders, then broke his own term limits pledge when he served in Congress. He was known as one of the "House Crazies" when he served in the legislature. And he's the only candidate for governor who supported 2012's Amendment 64, which legalized marijuana.

At the ball fields outside Wheat Ridge Middle School on May 31, Tancredo discussed his campaign for governor as he cheered on his grandson. Doesn't a calendar filled with family stuff feed into the folklore that Tancredo really doesn't want to be governor, but just hasn't figured out how to gracefully bow out?

"No," Tancredo said. "I'm not worried about spending today with my grandson instead of campaigning, and do you know why? I'm going to win anyway."

Tancredo has a folksy, comfortable way about him that some Republicans fear will help propel him to victory in the June 24 primary over three GOP rivals. Republicans have tried to talk Tancredo into dropping out of the primary because they believe his off-the-cuff inflammatory remarks and immigration policies will hurt the GOP ticket in November.

Tancredo pointed to Daniel Garcia of Adams County, who said of Tancredo at a GOP event last year, "Legal Hispanics love him!" The late Sen. Paul Sandoval, a north Denver Democrat known as the godfather of Colorado politics, once said of Tancredo, "You can say a lot of things about Tom Tancredo. Racist is not one of them."

Tancredo ran for governor in 2010, jumping in as a third-party candidate because he believed the Republican hopefuls were too flawed. He came in behind Democrat John Hickenlooper but well ahead of the GOP nominee, Dan Maes.

Tancredo won't debate his fellow Republicans, saying the exchanges provide ammunition for the other side to use against them. (He credits that decision for the unusually civil tone of the campaign). The day his GOP rivals were debating at 9News in Denver, Tancredo was at rally in Oklahoma Cityprotesting Attorney General Eric Holder and saying no one's had the "guts" to impeach President Obama because he's black.

Tancredo has relied on controversial figures such as rocker Ted Nugentand Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio to help with his fundraising pitches. Nugent has called Obama a "subhuman mongrel" and insulted women, gays and Hispanics. Arpaio was sued by the feds for what was called "unprecedented" discrimination against Latinos.

"I think most people realize that even though I'm controversial," Tancredo said, "the things I say need to be said."

Political history: Ran for governor in 2010; ran for president in 2008; congressman from the 6th District from 1999-2009; appointed by President Reagan and reappointed by President Bush as regional representative for the Department of Education; state House, 1977-81

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